Can Delivery Length Be Genetic?

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Skberg wrote:

I know everyone is different and even various pregnancies with the same woman can vary. However, my mom had 5 vaginal births, the longest of which was 4 hours. Thoughts? Even though I am doing a hospital + epi birth, I want to be at home for as long as possible before going in.

My mom's labour with me was 36 hours, and with my brother I believe it was only like 5 or 7 hours. They told her she was "made to give birth".

My labour with my first pregnancy was 19 hours and ended in a c section among other things because my pelvis isn't "accommodating". This one will be a c section as well. If it's genetic it must have skipped me, lol.

I don't believe so. My twin sister has short labors with one or two pushes. I have had three totally different labours ranging from 6-36 hours I pushed for 3 hrs my first 2 hrs with my second and 1hr with my third

Exactly FitABaby517- thanks for the feedback. My mom had 3 second trimester losses and one of her 6 live births was five weeks early when her placenta ruptured. I presume complications aren't genetic (i.e. my mom had a vaginal birth and I had a c-section), I was just wondering if their could be a link between length of labor specifically. Obviously other things like fertility and birthing complications couldn't be. My mom was extremely fertile and I had to do IVF.

Agreed, I would take it! My mom only only used medication with her first VBAC (#5) since she said it was significantly more painful and she felt a lot more pressure. With #6, she resumed with no medication and had a 4 hour labor.

Definitely interesting! I think the length of labor that people report is probably really affected by when they realized they were in labor or started to have noticeable painful contractions too.

Some women don't realize labor has started until later and they might already be dialted quite a lot by the time they get to the hospital. If they then deliver four hours later they say the whole thing took four hours, when really it was obviously longer than that.

If women notice contractions early on or their water breaks early in labor then the are able to say more accurately when labor actually started. Anyway, I think it varies a lot like you said, and I wouldn't expect your experience to necessarily be like your mother's.

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